LOCKPORT — On a night when Niagara County lawmakers authorized a significant raise for a top elected official, dozens of unionized workers gathered inside the courthouse building to advocate for higher wages of their own.
Members of the Civil Service Employees Union, which represents more than 600 mostly white-collar county workers from the departments of social service and public health, attended Tuesday night’s legislature meeting to show their frustration over current contract negotiations.
Some of the workers carried signs that read: “We need a fair contract.” Others carried signs urging lawmakers and county management to “show some respect.”
Jill Ackerman, a spokesperson for the CSEA members, said union representatives have been in talks over a new contract since earlier this year and have met eight times with county negotiators to discuss terms.
Ackerman said the union is interested in reaching a four-year deal before the current contract ends on Dec. 31. While there are other issues of concern to members, she said the biggest sticking point remains proposed wage hikes being offered to the unionized workers by county management.
“Our folks are very concerned about what their raises are going to look like. They are already short-staffed in many departments,” she said.
Ackerman noted that, this year, many of the top managers in the county received raises. Some of those salary bumps were significant, she noted.
“That huge listing of raises is out there and our folks are seeing what that is and they are not even getting anything close,” she said.
As the newspaper reported last year, the county’s 2024 budget included large bumps in salary for several department heads, the county attorney and six assistant attorneys.
From 2023 to 204, Assistant County Attorney Katherine Alexander received a $30,000 hike in pay. The annual salary for Social Services Commissioner Meghan Lutz increased by $22,000. County Manager Rick Updegrove received a $17,549 raise from his 2023 salary of $143,951, which boosted his annual rate of pay to $161,500. County lawmakers also agreed to amend the 2024 budget to include $5,000 raises for themselves.
During Tuesday’s legislature meeting, lawmakers voted unanimously to support a new contract that increases Filicetti’s annual salary by $18,442 starting next year. The new four-year deal bumps Filicetti’s salary in 2025 from its current level of $130,836 to $149,278, a 13% increase. The deal provides Filicetti with annual 3% raises in each subsequent year, moving his salary to $155,503 in 2026; $159,524 in 2027 and $164,709 in 2028.
The newspaper reported earlier this week that Filicetti negotiated his first term’s salaries as sheriff based on what non-elected employees were receiving in wage increases each year, which was 2%.
He told the newspaper he negotiated for the larger increase in one year to also reflect what non-elected employees had received during that term, while his salary was set.
The resolution authorizing the salary increase credited Filicetti, who has been county sheriff since 2021, with finding funding for five more deputies in the field, expanding the Niagara County radio tower system, adding texting for emergency calls and continuing to create partnerships with the county’s police chiefs, superintendents of schools, Niagara Falls Police Department, as well as expanding the Explorer’s program, a program for youth interesting in joining law enforcement agencies.
His tenure has not been without its controversies as a state commission that oversees the operations of forensics laboratories in New York cited the county’s lab, which is managed by the sheriff’s office, with a series of violations. The state commission directed the county to address its concerns with the lab and has established a committee to continue monitoring the lab’s operation.
County lawmakers said they are satisfied that Filicetti and his team have been responsive to the commission’s recommendations.
“The sheriff hasn’t gotten a raise in four years and at the same time all of his brass has so I think it’s justified for him to get a raise,” said Niagara Falls lawmaker and Democratic Minority Leader Chris Robins.
